


Lost and Gained

by Asterrious



Series: Stories from the Outback [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Trans Junkrat, TransJunkrat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7404598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asterrious/pseuds/Asterrious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A job goes wrong and a plan comes crashing down, along with a building. Junkrat loses something in wreckage and gets something else from Roadhog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Gained

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a comic by tumblr user purple-scales
> 
> Link: http://purple-scales.tumblr.com/post/146327564579/just-in-case-you-were-in-need-of-some-roadrat
> 
> Very mild mentions of gore. First time writing for these two. My junkrat is trans although it doesn't really matter much in this one.

The thing about lying below a pile of rubble, breath coming in shallow pants because an iron bar was crushing the life out of your lungs, was that it gave you plenty of time to think. Junkrat had always been good at that, though you’d never have known it. He tended to overthink things, thoughts bouncing around his brain until it was a veritable white noise of shouting, wondering, planning, building. It made him twitchy and bouncy, always on the lookout to calm his mind, silence the never-ending litany of sensation around him. Jamison noticed everything. 

He noticed that it was a hell of a good thing he didn’t need to wear a binder anymore, because the combined pressure of it and the bar just might have exploded his heart. _(Could that happen? He knew hearts could explode but the exact circumstances escaped him. Maybe he should look that up. It sounded amazing.)_

He noticed there was a terrible stench in the air, more than just his own natural odor, more than the normal smells of the city. It smelled foul and burnt, worse than the time Roadhog had robbed that Taco Bell and they’d spent the night holed up in a little motel, Junkrat flipping through the local stations and calling out the different poop puns that popped into his head while his indisposed partner spent the night in the bathroom. This was something familiar though, and rather than disgust, it brought back almost fond memories.

But then he had it. Burned flesh. There must have been a burned corpse somewhere near. He felt better with the mystery solved.

And he noticed that there was no reaction from his right arm as he tried to twitch his fingers towards his pockets. While he would never be able to get the iron bar off himself, maybe he could blow the piece wall that covered him away with a well-placed grenade. Roadhog would be able to see him then, if the other hadn’t already given him up for dead. The sounds of gunfire had ceased outside, but Junkrat also didn’t hear the familiar sound of the scrap gun or the clinking of Hog’s chain and hook. 

He shouldn’t have been surprised. The months prior had been filled with heists, explosions and bodies, a trail of destruction left in their wake that authorities were still struggling to clean up months after the fact. Riding in Roadhog’s bike left bugs in his teeth and windburn beneath the soot that somehow still clung to him, but Junkrat never minded. He’d been alone all these years, wandering the wilderness, so it was nice to have some company, even if he was paying the big guy to be around. Mostly the Junkers fended for themselves, and he liked to think he was just fine that way- but imagining Hog leaving him like just another body on the pile somehow left an odd ache in his chest.

_Something beyond the burning pain of being crushed, anyway._

But now that he thought Junkrat was dead, there was no reason for Roadhog to stick around. Despite the comeradere they’d built up over time, this was only a job for the bigger man. He just had to remind himself of that. At least he’d always have his explosives.

The grenades!

He’d gotten so sidetracked that he’d completely forgotten about what he’d been trying to do. Though his giggling was somewhat subdued, he laughed and tried once again to scoot blackened fingers towards the pockets of his shorts, hunting for any explosives he had left. Hopefully the blast wouldn’t take him out too, but you never knew. It was something he was prepared for. 

When his right hand didn’t respond once again, he forced his head to swivel, ignoring the ache in his chest as the bar settled down deeper and deeper. It took him a moment to process that what he was seeing, Junkrat’s mind not making the connection between the empty piece of dirt and the place where his right hand used to be. Logically, it should have been right there. He could feel that it should be, had thought that it was. 

It took even longer for him to notice the absolute ruin of flesh dangling from the stub of his arm. For once his head was silent. Junkrat’s mouth moved on autopilot, though there was no one to hear it.

“Guess I’m not gonna be that handy anymore…” 

It was a weak pun and he couldn’t find the air in his lungs needed to laugh at it. Junkrat could tell the silence in his head was from shock, could feel the heavy, cloying feeling numbing him to the pain of losing yet another limb. A land mine when he was a child, a collapsing building when he was a criminal… At this rate he’d be on track to losing the other arm when he was 40. If he made it.

Hard to breathe now. Black hovered at the edges of his vision and the Junker suddenly found himself gasping for air as his lungs spasmed, violently, valiantly, vainly attempting to do their job. He was cold and all he could think of was that if he managed to detonate a grenade, it would help keep him warm. He’d never gotten used to being cold. 

Not a bad way to die, blowing yourself up- it was how he’d always imagined he’d go.

Rooting around in his pocket, he felt nothing but cloth, reached further, squealed, realized there was a hole in his pants and his hand had continued on into his underwear, and finally came up with one of the bombs he’d made that morning. He’d taken the time to paint a little smile on it’s face and he smiled back at it now, trying to remember if it was one of the ones packed with shrapnel or not.

But it wasn’t like it really mattered. 

_Probably_ a good thing that Roadhog shoved the wall away from him the second before he’d pulled the pin.

The larger Junker was absolutely covered in dust, mask turned white and hair caked in plaster. A moment passed where neither of them moved, until Junkrat threw himself back to life, breathless laughter punctured by coughing spilling out from his lips. He let go of the grenade, unsure how he’d have pulled the pin with only one hand anyway, and let it roll away in the dirt.

“Hey Roadie! Don’t ya worry ‘bout me, I’m all left!”

Another moment of silence.

“Get it?” This was precious air he was wasting on a stupid pun, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “Because me right arm’s gone now too? M’all left?”

Junkrat felt a word vomit coming on, brought on by panic and blood loss, but a coughing fit quickly silenced that. He could only manage a dry hacking that sprayed blood across the bar and stained Roadhog’s newly white shoes red. 

In a flash the weight pressing down on his chest was gone. His mouth hung open slightly at the speed with which Roadhog had the smaller man up in his arms, smearing even more blood around. Junkrat hacked again, the iron taste of blood running thick and coarse in his mouth. It wasn’t unfamiliar, given the materials he worked with, but this time it was layered with adrenaline and sweat and the scent of what he could now see was many, many, charred corpses.

Roadhog was looking down at him with an unfathomable expression. It took effort to keep his eyes open but he tried, wondering why the bodyguard had come back to look for him. Maybe he wanted Junkrat to tell him where the treasure was.

“Hey mate, don’t g-give me that look…” There he went, babbling again. While breath was somewhat easier without the metal crushing him, it still felt like there was a weight on his chest, squeezing air out of his lungs. Junkrat hadn’t felt anything like this since he’d bound with bandages, all those years ago. He reached up to poke Roadhog’s mask with his right arm, to buy time to catch his breath, but the sight of the red, ragged stump was not something he’d needed to see. Guess his right hand decided that their last wanking session was the final straw.

“We all gotta blow up someday, heh?”

Again, Mako held completely still. Junkrat took that as a sign that he couldn’t be saved, not even if there was a doctor in the area. Figured.

“Guess this time, ya’r be gettin’ the whole benefit.” Hog would probably figure it out, given enough time. He did have exclusive access to the Junker’s mind- he wasn’t a very complicated man. A boom here, a firework there… He wasn’t built for keeping many secrets. 

Rat felt his eyes roll back in his head and Hog suddenly shook him violently, snapping him back into awareness in one awful second. His broken ribs ached, his head screamed, and the stump of his arm was gradually working it’s way past the numbing barrier of shock.

“What the fuck-“

But Roadhog was still moving, easily shifting the smaller man into one arm and reaching behind his head. Junkrat heard the clink of straps, a sound he’d only heard muffled from behind a bathroom door.

“…Whatcha doin’…?”

His answer was the other Junker’s mask pressed down over his face. It easily dwarfed his small head, most of his face visible through the eyepieces. It smelled like sweat and even more blood in here, but underneath it all ran an undercurrent of something that was entirely Roadhog. Junkrat was juggled as the straps were hastily buckled behind his blonde head, securing it as tightly as it would get to a face it didn’t entirely fit.

Roadhog’s face flashed in front of his eyes. A stubbled jaw, a large nose, yellowed and gritted teeth. Brown eyes without a pane of glass in front of them, warping their color.

He wished he had more time to admire it, because he liked what he saw. Beyond the confusion of Roadhog actually coming back for him, the confusion of his newly left-handed status, the confusion of this entire damn day, he wished he could stare forever.

But any comment he might’ve made was silenced by the stench of chemical in his nose and the taste of it in his mouth.

Junkrat coughed and sputtered as the substance entered his body, unused to the healing gas, and Roadhog held him tighter, hand resolutely holding the canister to the intake valve on the mask. Forcing himself to calm down, the Junker took several deep breaths, ignoring the awful taste, focusing on the face that hovered above the mask. The gravity of what Roadhog had done hit him as he inhaled, realizing they were still out in the open, still standing in the wreckage of the store they’d been robbing. His partner didn’t always take his mask off in the shower, let alone around another person. 

_God, Roadhog had come back for him._

The drug was working within seconds. Already Junkrat could feel it race through his body, pooling at the stump of his arm and winding through his poor bruised and battered lungs. There was no joke in the back of his head as he inhaled more clean air through the mask, feeling his lungs inflate and deflate like they were supposed to. The Junker could not think of a single pun or line to say, something to diffuse the tension of the situation. 

So he did the only thing he could do. Junkrat cried.


End file.
